The Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board is setting the stage for a major new multiyear initiative to study the needs of Thrift Savings Plan participants and improve its services. The first step in the process will be determining benchmarks for how the board currently operates and communicates with participants, said Kim Weaver, the board's director of external affairs.

The Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board says offering federal employees an extra loan option through their Thrift Savings Plans to cushion the impact of furloughs would require too much effort to implement and may not help the employees all that much. Several federal-employee unions have lobbied the board to add a second general purpose loan option to help cushion the blow of furloughs. But at a Employee Thrift Advisory Council meeting April 22, the board quashed the idea, citing the complexity surrounding the changes.